Social Security is in danger. A petition posted by several actors in the world of health aims to preserve the current social protection system.
First absent from the political debate, health is the surprise guest of the 2017 presidential election. What is the future of Social Security? This is the question that all candidates ask themselves. The proposals range from status quo to an upheaval in the philosophy of the French health system. The players in the world of health are also invited to the discussions. The Collective for Social Security, which brings together doctors, nursing staff, economists, philosophers, posted a petition on the platform on December 12 Change.org. The first signatories agree on one point: the current mode of care must be perpetuated.
Efficiency at the heart of demands
Health insurance is “the fairest and most efficient means for a united health system”, say the petitioners. They plead in favor of an indiscriminate reimbursement of the most serious pathologies, of long duration… but also of current care. The famous cold, taken as an example by the candidate of the right and the center François Fillon, should not be called into question. The place of prevention in the systems also calls for development. A suggestion close to that of Benoît Hamon, candidate for the primary of The Belle Alliance Populaire.
Only one requirement emerges from the petition: that of the effectiveness of the drugs covered. This is indeed a recurring problem. Recently, several treatments have seen their reimbursement questioned. Blame it on a lack of efficiency. This area represents, according to the signatories, a significant source of savings. This is undoubtedly what motivated the end of reimbursement of molecules such as slow-acting anti-arthritis drugs or treatments for anxiety disorders using plants.
Limit hospitalizations
Innovative molecules and medical devices, the effectiveness of which leaves no room for doubt this time, also weigh heavily on the accounts of the Social Security. New anticancer drugs, hepatitis C treatments, drug prescription is not the only angle of attack proposed by the petitioners. They also ask that hospitalizations be limited to absolute necessities. This item represents 20% of expenses, according to them.
The presidential candidates would do well to take an interest in this list of complaints, because all are targeted by the petition. François Fillon advances the regulation of health insurance and complementary organizations. He defends himself, in Le Figaro, any privatization of the system. Yet it is his proposals that have raised the most concerns. “Social security, one of the pillars of our society, is threatened,” said Bernard Granger, psychiatrist at the Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP). This is also the opinion of the Minister of Social Affairs and Health, Marisol Touraine, who crushed the candidate of the right and the center in three sharp tweets.
.@FrancoisFillon I just read your text. Not only do you not give up on your plan to de-reimburse the “small risk” 1/3
– Marisol Touraine (@MarisolTouraine) December 12, 2016
for what purpose, if not to entrust them with reimbursements that you withdraw from health insurance? The French can be worried. 3/3
– Marisol Touraine (@MarisolTouraine) December 12, 2016
François Fillon strikes back
The candidate of the right and the center takes the pen to defend his presidential project. In a column published in Le Figaro, François Fillon says he does not want to privatize Health Insurance but to empower its users. Return on the generalized third-party payment, better reimbursement of optical and dental care … The list of proposals is long. But above all very different from those submitted in the public space so far. Its spokespersons recently suggested a differentiated management of “small” and “big” risks. The former Prime Minister reaffirms, for his part, “the principle of universality in the spirit of the ordinances of 1945.”
In addition, the candidate attacks the health policy of François Hollande’s five-year term and, in the process, scratches Marisol Touraine. “The left prefers to forget that the weight of mutuals and personal insurance has continued to increase for decades, including within the framework of the reforms that it itself voted”, he points out. To balance the system, he suggests the creation of a regulatory and control agency.
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